The Holocaust: An OVERVIEW

Two German Jewish families at a prewar gathering. Only two of them survived Holocaust. Germany, 1928.

HITLER BECOMES A PROPHET

•Hitler to Reichstag, January 30, 1939: “Today, I will again be a prophet. If international finance Jewry…should again succeed in plunging the nations into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

What was the Holocaust?Concepts: • The Holocaust was the state-sponsored,

systematic persecution & annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims — six million were murdered; Roma, people with disabilities living in institutions, Soviet prisoners of war , Soviet civilians, and Polish leadership elites were likewise targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and political dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny

What was the Holocaust?• The phrase Final Solution of the Jewish

Question was code for the physical annihilation of all European Jews

• Holocaust & Final Solution not synonymous: the Holocaust is a term that encompasses all forms of discrimination & persecution of Jews within Nazi sphere of influence & includes resistance and rescue.

• Final Solution of the Jewish Question part of broader plan for völkische Flurbereinigung [ethnic cleansing]

Nazi iDEologyGrounded in 19th Century Völkisch Theories of Human History &Relations.

•Race=Fixed Set of Physiological, Psychological, Behavioral & Ethical Characteristics

•Inequality of the Races •Social Darwinist Struggle for Survival

NAZI IDEOLOGY•Social Darwinism•Survival=Expansion and Purification.

•Growth through reproduction requires expansion. Instinctual impulse.

•Purification: eliminating foreign biological influences & defective genetic elements.

•Each race expanded from fixed, national land base.

Nazi ideologyJEWS AS PRIORITY RACIAL ENEMY• Jews defined as race—but no land mass.• Jews only race with capacity to organize inferior

races to resist & destroy superior races & cultures.

1. International finance: impoverish host nation2. Mass media: mislead host nation3. Bolshevism: instigate civil war & political chaos.4. Equal rights and international peace:

a. Undermine host nations & drain away natural

advantages of superior “races.” • Jews priority danger--acted like Germans.

Other Racial “Issues”

•Polish Leadership Classes—Intellectual elites

•East Slavs & “Asiatics”—Soviet civilians

•Bearers of the Bolshevik idea—Soviet POWs & officials of Soviet Communist Party & State

Other Racial “Issues”• People with hereditary physical &

intellectual disabilities“Breed out” “weak genes” & eliminate “useless

eaters.” Sterilization, later “mercy-killing.”

• Roma—hereditary “criminal class”• Afro-Germans• About 2,500 in Germany • Nazi regime did not physically

annihilate Afro-Germans. Many, though not all were sterilized

• Too small a minority to have significant priority

“BEHAVIORAL” ENEMIES • NEVER AGAIN 1918: STAB IN THE BACK1. TOOLS OF JEWS:• Criminals, Asocials- incl. Roma &

Homosexuals • Political Opponents: Pacifists,

Internationalists, Catholic Clergy, Jehovah’s Witnesses.

• “Marxists”: Social Democrats, Communists,

Labor Unions, Anarchists.2. BEFORE GERMANY WENT TO WAR AGAIN, THESE FORCES HAD TO BE NEUTRALIZED.3. RACIALLY VALUABLE—REHABILITATION.

Chancellor Adolf Hitler and President Paul von Hindenburg. Potsdam, Germany, March 21, 1933

STATE OF EMERGENCY• February 28, 1933: Reichstag Fire Decree

1. Suspended constitutional constraints on

state investigations of individuals & groups for criminal or subversive

actions2. Authorized central government to overthrow local governments3. Central Government decides when emergency ends

STATE OF EMERGENCY•Emergency legislation directed against Communists

•Highly popular. •Opened extra-legal space to implement core Nazi goals

•Hitler’s position as Führer, August 19, 1934, placed his authority outside constraints of state & law.

SA man guards arrested Communists. Berlin, Germany, March 6, 1933.

NAZI BOYCOTT

Germans!

Defend yourselves!

Don't buy from Jews!

Assault Detachment (Sturmabteilungen—SA) members withsigns block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. Berlin, Germany, April 1, 1933.

“Working towards the FÜhrer”

The Burning of “Un-German“ Books. Berlin, Germany, May 1933.

Race Hygiene

At Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics, &Eugenics, a racial hygienist measures a woman's features to “determine” her racial ancestry. Berlin, Germany, date uncertain.

“Folk Community” (Volksgemeinschaft)

Nazi Party Congress, Nuremberg, Germany, September 1938.

Chart indicating determination of Jewish racial ancestry in Nazi Germany.

A chart used by German Ministry of Health to justify compulsory sterilization of "inferiors." Shows decrease in reproduction of "superior" peoples & increase in "inferior" peoples. Germany, 1938

Antisemitic Propaganda

Source: Der Ewige Jude, Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., Franz Eher, Nachf., 1937

Nazi Antisemitic Book, The Eternal Jew, 1937Nazi stereotype depicting Jews as both money lenders & communists.

German Gains 1938-1939

“Peace in our time!”

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (center) meets press at airport following return from Munich Conference. London, Great Britain, September 1938.

Emigration

Jews wait at Margarethen Police Precinct for exit visas. Vienna, Austria, March 1938.

Emigration

Children’s Transport (Kindertransport)

Passport issued to

Gertrud Gerda Levy,

who left Germany in August 1939 on a Children's Transport (Kindertransport) to Great Britain.

Berlin, Germany, August 23, 1939.

A synagogue destroyed during Kristallnacht ("Night of Crystal"). Baden-Baden, Germany, November 10, 1938.

Transferring Ownership

“Stamm &BassermannFormerly Gummi Weil”

"Aryanization" of Jewish-owned businesses.

Frankfurt, Germany, 1938.

Nazi Soviet Pact

August 23, 1939, Purpose of Nazi-Soviet Pact for Nazi Germany:

Secure Germany’s Eastern Front in event of war with West.

Start of World War II

German forces during invasion of Poland, Sep. 1939

German soldiers guard Jews rounded up

for forced labor. Warsaw, Poland, 1939 or 1940.

“Legitimizing” medical murderBerlin, September

1, 1939

Reich Leader Bouhler andDr. med. Brandt

are tasked with responsibilityto extend the authority of physicians to be designated in future so that, afterthe most careful assessmentof their condition, those suffering from illnesses deemedto be incurable may be granteda mercy death.

[signed]A. Hitler

People with Disabilities in Germany

German-Occupied Europe

German Partition of Poland

Ghettos

View, footbridge connecting two parts of Łódź ghetto. Łódź, Poland, 1941

In the Ghetto

Jews in crowded apartment in Radom ghetto. Poland, March 1941-August 1942.

In the Ghetto

In Warsaw ghetto, Jewish children with bowls for rations of soup.

Warsaw, Poland, 1940-1943.

In the Ghetto

Child working at a machine in a ghetto workshop. Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941-1943.

Characteristics of Ghettos1. Geographically located in north & central

regions of the former Jewish Pale of Settlement, where European Jewish population was more dense: Government General, Białystok District, Lithuania, Latvia, & western parts of Belarus and Ukraine.

2. A section of a city in which Jews were required to live—almost always a run down section, lacking utilities connections.

3. Jews not permitted to leave confines of the ghetto without authorization of Germans.

4. Jewish community “governed” by a self-administration, usually a Jewish Council.

5. Jewish Council responsible to

Jewish community for: a) Housing b) Food distribution c) Policing d) Taxation e) Education and

Childcare f) Social Services g) Sanitation, Burial

THE “Final Solution• January 24, 1939:• Heydrich as Chief of Security Police &

SD entrusted w/coordinating Final Solution to Jewish question in Reich

•September 27, 1939: • Security Police & SD reorganized into

RSHA under Heydrich, later Kaltenbrunner

• July 31, 1941:• Heydrich & RSHA tasked

w/coordinating Final Solution to Jewish Question in Europe

Shooting Operation Sites

Shooting Operations

Ukrainian Jews shortly before German SS & police massacre them. Lubny, Soviet Union, October 16, 1941.

German police shoot wounded Jewish women following the mass shooting of Jewish civilians outside the Mizocz ghetto. Belarus, October 1942.

Wannsee Conference

Site of January 20, 1942 Wannsee Conference, convened by Reich Security Main Office chief Reinhard Heydrich, on "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Berlin, Germany, date uncertain.

Reichsfuhrer - SS and Chief of German PoliceHenrich Himmler

Higher SS & Police Leader

Government GeneralF. -W. Krüger

IdO (Reich)BdO (Occupied

Teritories)

IdS (Reich)BdS

(OccupiedTerritories)

SS & Police LeaderLublin District

Globocnik

KdSKdG

KdOPolice BattalionsEg. 101

SS Main Office

SS-Economic &Administrative

Main OfficeOswald Pohl

SS OperationsMain Office

chief, Security Police & SDRSHA (Berlin)

Reinhard Heydrich

ChiefOrder PoliceKurt Daluege

OperationsOffice

Waffen SS

Waffen SSField Units

Inspector ,Concentration

Camps(to 1942)

Inspectorate,Concentration

Camps(after 3/42)

Camp CommandantAuschwitz

Rudolf Hoess

Office IIISD-

Internal

VISD-

Foreign

Office IVGestapo

Office VKripo

IVb4Eichmann

Einsatzgruppen of Sipo & SD

SS & Police Units Charged with Implementing “Final Solution”

Dept. Operation “Reinhard”

DeportationsHöfle

SS Special Detachments Wirth

Belzec Sobibor Treblinka 2

Trawniki Training Camp Streibel

Detachment Lublin Detachment Poniatowa

Holocaust in Romania

Deportation to Killing Centers

Deportation

Jews board deportation train at Westerbork transit camp, Netherlands. From Westerbork, German authorities deported Jews to Auschwitz & Sobibor in German-occupied Poland, 1942-44.

Deportation

Deportation of Jews from Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. Warsaw, Poland, July-September 1942.

Deportation

Jewish men, women, and children during deportation to the Treblinka killing center. Siedlce, Poland, August 1942.

Deportation

Jewish women, children & elderly await deportation at railroad station in Koszeg, a small town in northwestern Hungary. Koszeg, Hungary, 1944. Transport went to Auschwitz

In Auschwitz

Jewish women and children deported from Hungary line up for selection. Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Poland, May 1944.

IN AUSCHWITZ

Selection of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Oświęcim, Poland, May 1944.

In Auschwitz

Piles of shoes that belonged to prisoners killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poland, wartime.

Concentration Camp System Forced Labor

Forced labor in the quarry of Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Austria, date uncertain.

The SS forced prisoners to carry Granite blocks up more than180 steps. Larger blocks couldeach weigh more than 75 pounds.

Forced Labor

Prisoners at forced labor in Siemens factory. Auschwitz camp, Poland, 1940-1944.

German Military Defeat

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Deportation of Jews from Warsaw ghetto during uprising. Warsaw, Poland, May 1943.

Rescue in Denmark

Boat used by Danish fishermen to transport Jews to Sweden during German occupation. Denmark, date uncertain.

RESCUE IN DENMARK

1.Largely autonomous Danish administration until 1943; Germans regard population as racial equals2.Relatively small Jewish population

a. About 7,500 Jews in Denmark, including about 1,500 refugees, out of a population of 3.5 million (.02%) 3.Largely assimilated Jewish community, native Danish speakers4.Low level of anti-Semitism: Jews are regarded as Danes first; Jews second. No process of segregation.5. Proximity of a neutral country willing to accept the refugees. 6.About 7,000 Jews in Denmark found refuge in Sweden Germans arrested about 400 Jews in Denmark

Rescue in Poland

Commercial area on Nalewki Street in Warsaw's Jewish quarter.

Warsaw, Poland, 1938.

German decree of October 1941, in German & Polish, warns that Jews leaving the ghetto, or Poles who assisted them, will be executed. Częstochowa, Poland.

Stanisław DobrowolskiKrakow, Poland, ca. 1930.

During the war, Stanislaw headed the Kraków branch of Żegota (Polish Council for Aid to Jews)

Żegota was an underground organization that aimed to rescue & assist Jews in German-occupied Poland.

Members of a Polish family who hid a Jewish girl on theirfarm.

Zyrardów, Poland, 1941-1942.

RESCUE IN POLAND1.Direct German rule; Germans regard population as racial inferiors2.Relatively large Jewish population about 3.0 million Jews out of 30 million (10 percent)3.Jews account for as much as 30-40 % of some major cities: Warsaw (30 %), Łódź (35%) Lwów—today: L’viv (30%) a. Half of all Jewish Holocaust victims lived in pre- war Poland4.Many unassimilated Jewish communities, with many Hassidic Jews, different in dress & language5.High level of anti-Semitism; Jews are regarded as Jews not Poles.6. In heart of German-occupied Eastern Europe. Slovakia & Hungary dangerous to reach

Holocaust in Romania

Hans Scholl (left), his sister Sophie (center), & Christoph Probst (right), members of White Rose opposition group. All three were arrested, condemned by the People's Court, &executed on February 22, 1943. Munich, 1942.

Evacuation Marches

Clandestine photograph, taken by a German civilian, of Dachau Concentration Camp prisoners on evacuation march south through a village on way to Wolfratshausen.

Germany, April 26-30, 1945.

Liberation

Liberation

Children survivors of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Germany, 1945.

LiberationSurvivors of Mauthausen cheer U.S. soldiers as they pass through the main gate of the camp. The photograph was taken several days after the liberation of the camp. Mauthausen, Austria, May 9, 1945.

Liberation

Camp survivors after liberation. Dachau, Germany, after April 29, 1945.

Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

Herman Göring turns to speak with Karl Doenitz during Nuremberg Trial. Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, & Wilhelm Keitel sit to Göring's left. Karl Dönitz & Alfred Rosenberg in back. Nuremberg, Germany, November 26, 1945.

BIBLIOGRAPHY• Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A

Concise History of the Holocaust (Lanham, Md.: Rowen & Littlefield, 2009)

• Browning, Christopher, Ordinary Men: Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper, 1998)

• Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

• Raul Hilberg et al., edts. The Warsaw Ghetto Diary of Adam Czerniaków (New York: Stein and Day, 1979)

BIBLIOGRAPHY• Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas

of Central Europe, Rev. & Expanded Edition (Seattle: U. Washington Press, 2002)

• Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust, 4th Edition (New York: Routledge, 2009).

More Information?

• Peter Black: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

pblack@ushmm.gov

website: www.ushmm.org.

Holocaust Encyclopedia online.

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